


Madonna

by hellhoundsprey



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Always Female Dean, Comfort/Angst, Dean Has Daddy Issues, Established Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Jealousy, Mommy Kink, Orgasm Control, Past Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Past Underage Sex, Post-Stanford, Sibling Incest, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:49:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9312272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/pseuds/hellhoundsprey
Summary: Things used to be easier. This is on Sam.





	

Wind and sand have been whipping their asses around for hours, but what can you do, bake alive in eighty with the windows up? No, sir. They’d be drowning in their sweat anyway, right?

Deanna leans over the counter, her back to Sam, cut-low front of her tank top to the salesclerk, and Sam can’t see her smile but he can _see_ _her smile_.

“Oh, we’re just passing through.” (He didn’t even ask her anything.)

Sam grabs a protein bar just to have a good excuse to shoulder himself into the scene. His sister doesn’t budge.

“Jus’ me,” she sighs, and the entire shop watches how she peels crumpled bill after bill from her wallet, leather and worn-out just like everything she ever scored from Dad (except for Sam), “and my pain in the ass little brother.”

~

“Jesus Christ—”

“Nah, ’s just me.”

Sam scrubs himself faster, hears the toilet seat being flipped up. “You could have at least knocked.”

Rustle of clothes, skin on porcelain. Clink-clatter promises her searching through her toiletry bag (another Dad-thing) while she takes a leak. She yawns. It’s seven PM.

The shower curtain is cheap but not yet see-through. That fine line you appreciate after years of motel hopping. God. Sam almost forgot.

One hand cradles the soap, the other spreads wide on the tiled wall, and Sam’s throat pulls tight.

“Guess how many vamps your awesome sis offed since you left?”

He’s staring at his fingers, empty-bursting and she always knows what he needs, huh. “How many?” (He tries to play it cool, doesn’t matter if he makes it.)

“Fif _teen_.” The toilet flushes dramatically.

“You’re kidding.” He’s actually smiling.

“Nuh-uh.”

It’s why he’s here. Why he’s back. Why he can’t stand in showers and cry and grieve for the rest of his life.

Turning off the water, grabbing the towel blindly—he wants it to be fast, discreet; everything is weird. It only takes a second to take her in (wide back, Dad-tee, bare arms and legs, messy ponytail, tanned dust of freckles on the back of her neck) and accept that she’s not even watching him in the mirror (naked and stupid but he’s gained a few pounds in Palo Alto, almost-already a man now and god how did he think he ever could leave any of this behind).

Still in nothing but her tee and not bothering to pick up her wallet either, Deanna leaves for a few minutes to return with a six-pack of beer. They share it sprawled on armchair and bed with a generous distance between them. She boasts about the breakneck shit she pulled with or without Dad and it feels so misplaced, so wrong, but Sam eventually _has_ to spill some lines about college. Plays the good parts down, yeah, but his sister still goes slightly tight-lipped, taps her current can with her nails while he speaks. (Jess usually had hers in French manicure and Deanna would have hated her for it.)

She doesn’t mention how he could have called, so he doesn’t tell her about the nights.

~

Back before Stanford, Sam had been too young to be a watchdog. And, to be honest, Deanna could take these guys out herself right now if she had to. But there’s this thing, watching your sister being this openly sexually with a bunch of guys at once. Embarrassment, for one.

Of course they’re wrong when they think she’s an easy girl, that they’re about to get it on with her—but for as long as the game lasts, it _is_ reality. She _is_ with them. She _does_ look and laugh and touch, jokes and shines and nurses on her drink like a teen.

Beer and the reek of stale smokes and staler drinks. Small-town bar, few girls and none comes close to what Deanna has. She’s been hoaxing drunks and men and drunk men for money ever since she realized she has something they want (as long as Sam can remember, actually), and she wouldn’t have to but is awesome at pool, fraud or not.

Sam has his own beer in his own corner of the bar, halfway hidden in the shadows and fully aware that those men at the pool table are closer to Deanna than he has been in years.

He doesn’t remember drinking as much as he becomes aware of it once he’s rushing up and towards them, almost trips over someone’s boots (Deanna’s?) and has her naked arm in his hand, some mix of angry-unnerved glare and she’s wearing lipstick tonight. Someone grabs him in return, tries to turn him around to face consequences he doesn’t give a single fuck about.

“She’s my sister!”

“Jesus.”

Deanna is fighting herself into her jacket once they’re outside, elbows Sam, hard, and the night air is too cold for his eyes.

“What the hell was _that_?!”

“I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Oh, boo-hoo, Sam!”

Back meets brick wall. Sam runs both hands over his face, back through his hair.

“Jealousy? Seriously? _You_ run away, get yourself a girl and you think _I’ll_ wait forever?!”

After weeks of carefully avoiding the topic, Deanna saying it this loudly, this blatantly, is too much. For both of them, but it’s Sam who’s crying.

Slouched on the ground, half his face covered in his own palms, he’s overflowing with apologies, with shame. Tells her he shouldn’t have left but he had to, can’t she see, this here is no way to live, not in the long run, and god he was so scared for her all the time, thinking about her even when he was with Jess, always, phantom-pain of _her_ not next to him in the bed, nightmares and headaches and nosebleeds, useless fights.

Deanna only tentatively shows any sign of compassion. And she’s right. Sam is no kid anymore, makes his own (wrong) decisions. She’s shuffling from foot to foot, arms crossed.

She’s mumbling when Sam has shut up for a while. “You’re back,” she says, “and that’s what counts, right now. That we have each other, yeah?”

Sam nods, sniffles.

“I’m not saying things’re forgotten and forgiven. We both gotta work to make this work.”

“Yes,” sobs Sam.

She sighs. Dirt crunches under the heels of her boots. “Let’s go home.”

~

All Sam threw up were his emotions but that’s enough to make him feel so fucking bare now, here, with his sister in another motel room like nothing ever changed, like he never left.

But it’s Deanna who’s shrugging out of Dad’s leather jacket, and Dad is still unlocatable, and Sam still ran away to be someone else.

It’s written all over her sour face, her eyes sharp and pinning Sam to the doorframe he’s still not moved away from. She kicks her boots off; a slight sway from the drinks.

“If you think you get to touch, think again, college boy.”

Skirt, top, bra; back to Sam, thong and new scars and one of Dad’s oldest tees (discarded twice, saved three times).

Slipped under covers, no lamp ever turned on, she announces, “Good night.”

Sam’s a coward (knows, knows) but even cowards get lonely, get heedless, and he’s drunk, that’s a good excuse.

She doesn’t stir when he nears the bed, quietly takes off his sneakers, jeans. Doesn’t stiffen but also doesn’t soften when he climbs in behind her to big-spoon her.

Her hair is softer than he remembers. She feels smaller because he grew bigger.

~

Deanna nurses a hangover and a wrenched rib, already busy again flipping newspapers for traces, signs, callouts, so when the waitress passes them the next time, Sam signs for her. It’s a busy Sunday morning. The place has homemade blueberry pancakes.

“Coffee, please, and the chicken club for me and the pancake bacon thing for my girlfriend here; thanks.”

Deanna, tactful as she is, waits for Susie or whatever her name is to skip out of hearing range before putting her bitch face on.

She’s hissing. “‘Girlfriend’? Are you kidding me?”

“What.” And, it’s blurted out of his mouth before he can think about it, “I can’t exactly say ‘my mom’, can I?”

Deanna opens her mouth—closes it.

They eat in silence. Deanna ends up finding a new case, no Dad.

~

Things used to be easier. This is on Sam.

It’s been weird ever since Jess had come into the picture. She had never known about what Deanna really meant to Sam; discovered that one thumbed-thin photo in his wallet. Jess most likely had her own assumptions when he made a habit of changing the subject as soon as family came up in conversations. There never had been a need or way to hide his troubled background.

Now that Jess is gone, it’s even more difficult—it’s like _betraying_ her.

Some classes here and there and, yeah, Sam knows the phrases, the studies, words like ‘attachment’ and ‘disorder’ and ‘abuse’, but that never felt comparable to what Deanna and him had had. All those facts and almost-barely familiar constructs confused yet steadied him even more.

What they had (have?) is special, and it was (is?) good, and nobody not-them can understand. This is something between the two of them, irrevocable, forever.

More than a decade (a childhood) too late to turn back the clocks.

Habits and memories, thought patterns, triggers.

They stopped closing bathroom doors once Sam teenage-grew out of his last inhibitions and Deanna can be so, so quiet, but she pads loudly, bare feet. She wants him to hear.

Maybe expects him to tell her ‘no’, after all this time. As if he could.

Already naked, apparently, since she’s pulling the shower curtain back and climbs under the stream to where Sam has been standing/staring for a while, still coping.

She’s quiet through hugging him from behind, wet-warm skin on skin and god how long has it been, arms around Sam’s middle, holding gently, her cheek and ear and hair stuck to Sam’s back. Her breasts are soft, obvious, and her pubes tickle his ass.

She’s so tall for a girl. Sam can only see that now, fully grown to tree-size, like his sister phrases it.

“You’re gonna drown,” she muses, sweet-lazy drawl of afternoon beer and Dad-worries. “It’s been an hour, Sammy.”

He says, “Hm,” feels his body reacting to her touch because that’s how he works, how the both of them knitted him together over the years, and he frowns with his eyes still closed and shifts a little (away, closer).

“C’mon, you’re all pruney already.”

He swallows. “Not yet.”

She hums in acceptance.

Her hands eventually start to wander. Maybe Deanna has been corrupted, too. Maybe she has missed her brother, too. She wouldn’t have had a boyfriend (or would she?), she’s always been the fling kind but always returned to _Sam_ —to apply a band aid, smooch a knee, comb hair.

Her, grazing his nipple with one hand and rubbing his stomach with the other, is her way of taking care of him, just as much as it is care when she takes hold of his dick; not even jerking, just holding, touching. Gentle pressure, swipe of fingertips.

A shaky exhale. Sam’s head droops lower. He feels himself twitching in her hand.

She lets go, tickles along the length of it. She’s still got her head leaning against his back. He can feel her heart ticking, steady, sharp.

He sways with the beginning of many, many kisses; shoulder blades, spine. As rough as the skin of her hands might be, she has a way of flirting them over Sam like mouths, grazing or nipping here or there, feeling a rib, a nipple, a mole. When he presses his ass back, her lap is right there.

He huffs.

Her hand is back where he needs her most; squeezes.

“You gave her this, yeah?”

All he can give is a small sound (enough to bring up the tears again).

“Hm.”

Deanna shifts. One hand on Sam’s hip, the other begins to stroke him from root to tip.

He sighs.

She’s whispering, “Thought about me while you were with her?” and maybe it’s more of an accusation than a question, but it’s tight and vulnerable and Sam barely feels anything her skin doesn’t touch.

His answer is, “Always,” small and secretive as if anyone in the world had the chance to hear them.

~

“This sucks.”

Deanna shoves her hand back into the potato chip bag, crunches the fistful with dissatisfaction.

“You sure we don’t have any more beer?”

“Yeah, no.” Sam wipes sweat from his upper lip, eyes trained on the house.

She grunts. Eats more chips.

“You know how many chemicals are in that shit?”

“As if I’d _live_ to have that heart attack, kid.”

He glares over at her. She ignores him, throws more of the seemingly endless bacon flavored chip supply into her mouth.

They’ve been sitting here for hours. No movement across the street. The tip must have been a flunk, but Deanna is as dutiful as she is unnerved, so they’re doing this until the end.

The car reeks of sweat, artificial bacon and frustration.

Deanna flops back into the driver seat, empty bag of chips folded nicely because this car is not a trash can, Sam. Sleepy, exhausted. She burps, turns her head to look elsewhere than through the windshield for a change. Her neck is bared, gleams with sweat.

There used to be hickeys on there when she came to pick Sam up. Faint, faint traces, because she most probably didn’t hook up after Dad didn’t turn up after a while, but she _had_ found distractions after post-Sam. No question.

She’s in one of her generic rock band tank tops, passed from rebellious teen to thrift shop to hunter, washed too little, worn too often. Despite not wearing a bra (“In this _heat_? Are you _crazy_?”), her nipples are invisible on her heavy, round breasts.

(She used to bind them down, as a kid; used to be embarrassed of them.)

Sam licks his lip, again.

Her legs are in constant man-sprawl, skirt (like right now) or not. The only times you would happen to catch her all demure would be around stupid guys she would want to pull a trick on. Sam never understood why anyone would want his sister any other way than she is—bold, unrestricted. She’s not scary or inappropriate, not intimidating.

She’s just…there. Captivating.

He says nothing, palm on the inside of her thigh; attention-gaining. Gooey droop of head, murmur of, “Hey,” sleepier than he had anticipated, but he’ll take it. She’s more relaxed when tired, more willing to accept gentleness.

Sam leans in to kiss the top of her breast, slippery-naked above Motörhead, and he can feel her surprise with how her leg twitches (but not closed).

Kissing turns into mouthing. She tastes like earlier summers, even if nothing like chlorine or sunscreen anymore, just sheets and car and junk food and skin. She sighs, oh-so pointedly light so maybe he won’t notice, and Sam dips his mouth deeper, harder, until his nose is buried with how he can sink into her here. Eyes closed, he inhales.

Her chest is heaving by the time he rucks the top down just enough. He shifts closer, one knee next to the gear stick now, and she’s melting in her seat with his mouth sucked over her nipple.

Sam’s mouth moves on instinct, long-learned routine. Tongue-swirl and pressure, gentle slide of jaw. He swallows spit and sweat. Her breathing is loud in the car, slightly overpowering the drumming in Sam’s ears.

Deanna mutters, “Baby,” when he tugs the other one free as well, stretches further to latch onto it next.

She’s humming, he’s nursing. She won’t pet his head, keeps her hands somewhere he can’t see (uselessly trembling to her sides, maybe) until she’s half-hugging him, smears bacon-salt-fat into his tee where she grabs him to urge on, encourages him to go for it—in conspiratorial silence.

The sun is blazing just outside the car. The road is quiet.

~

Muffled music and squelching of his own mouth and someone is done taking a piss in the stall next to theirs, bangs the door, oblivious in their drunkenness.

Deanna is panting; quivering breasts spilling from where she tugged them out of bra and top, kneads her nipples herself because Sam’s hands are on his own thighs, holding on.

There is nothing, at all, but this.

It’s mindless when she sucks her lip between her teeth, then sighs. A dead giveaway; she’s close.

How long has it been for her since the last time? She didn’t pick up anyone ever since Sam rejoined her. (Sam knows—they weren’t apart for longer than a few minutes, tops.)

He knows how long it’s been for himself and digs his fingers harder into his jeans, eats Deanna vigorously.

She said he wouldn’t get to come, but witnessing her orgasm is (almost) just as good.

It happens suddenly, violently. He keeps his mouth working, careful to prolong overstimulation so she’s trembling for so so long on his tongue.

She’s shaking, really, but used to keeping it quiet.

One touch to his head and Sam pulls back. His face is soaked but has no chance to cool down in the clammy air of the bar and his own heat; he wipes his sister’s come off with tongue and sleeve.

Deanna laughs as she nudges his crotch with her boot and he winces immediately. The zipper is a bitch.

“Come back to the table once you’ve calmed down.”

Sam nods.

She pats his cheek, tits tucked back in, wriggling her skirt down, apples of cheek pinked up. She’s smirking.

“Good boy.”

~

Pavlov, right? (Just that Sam is less than a dog; dogs don’t run, they don’t.)

Sam swallows while she watches from the other end of the room, standing, naked except for her bra.

He tugs the seam of his tee up-down. He has no clue what to do with himself.

Sam himself is naked from the waist down, on the bed, on his back, pulse and cock twitching nervously.

“I think,” she finally says, “we both agree that what you did calls for punishment.”

He doesn’t reply, just pinches his mouth tighter because holy shit.

He does, he _does_ , but.

That she would _do_ this.

“Twenty,” she decides, already closing in to Sam and the bed, sitting down on its edge, patting the sheets next to her. “You count them down. I _make_ them count.”

Almost too on edge to move, it’s twice as awkward to fold himself over her lap. He’s careful to keep his dick from touching her, but Deanna tugs him how she wants him and his efforts are null and void, just like that.

“I’m—”

“Shut it.”

He’s quivering and, on the first hit, jolts.

Deanna’s hands have always been mighty, but this, this is.

“They won’t count if you don’t count,” she reminds, tight through her teeth and Sam yelps, “One,” just before number two slams down on his left ass cheek.

“T-two… Three–four. Five—”

The pain is building up quickly. At first, it’s hard not to squirm.

She never hit him this hard before, not even when he had asked her to.

“Sixteen… Seventeen…” Sam’s vision would be blurred if he had his eyes open. Deanna is quiet. “Eighteen… Nineteen…”

The last hit is extra sharp—Sam sobs out loud. He lets his sister brush her warmed hand over his now sore ass, dwells in the tenderness of her touch. He has his face buried in the sheets and doesn’t dare move with his cock tucked up underneath her leg.

Deanna shushes him, helps him to lie on his stomach and settles in next to him. Gentle plucks and brushes get the hair out of his face even if only for a moment.

Her knee nudges his thighs open. She gets a hold of his dick, bent backwards and still straining. Sam raises his hips with a gasp so the pull isn’t too strong.

She’s slowly working him. “Tell me about her.”

“Like. Like what?”

“What she was like? What you did with her?”

Trembling with exhaustion, his fingers still peel over to Deanna’s chest, tug at the black lace there. “She was...” He swallows. “Jess was—she always was so kind. And determined. She’d kick my ass for not taking care of myself.”

“How often did you guys do it?”

“Every other night, I guess.”

Deanna inches closer so Sam can bury his face in her chest. “Hm,” she makes, and Sam is ashamed.

After a short hesitation, “Did you have anyone?”

She replies, “Several,” but clarifies, “but I didn’t _move in_ with any of them.”

Sam’s turn to, “Hm.” Still on the edge, he could stay here forever; nothing whole and nothing unfinished and there’s no responsibility here, no consequences.

Deann’s thumbnail itches over his slit harder than necessary. She’s whispering into his hair at this point.

“What did she call you?”

“Sam. Or Sammy.”

“And you?”

“Not like that.”

“No?”

“Nuh—just. That’s only for you.”

“So I’m still your one and only?”

Sam trembles. “Yes, Mommy.”

She’s thumbing the crown of his dick up to the point of no return just to remove her hand then. (Deanna always had a special way of showing appreciation. Hell, it’s probably Sam’s fault for being such a freak, asking for such things, inferiority and softness and she had always needed a guy to lean onto, vent on.) Sam is left squirming, coming on nothing and into the sheets.

She’s flipping him by his shoulders, pressing down, straddling his face.

Holds him by the hair; and he knows this game.

She looks like an angel with that late afternoon glow peeking out around the back of her head.

~

“Ohmygodohmygodohmy—”

No neighbor has complained yet. Sam can relate. Once Dad would be gone and Deanna would have boys over and Sam knew what was happening, he’d be on his knees, ear to the door.

But they don’t know it’s Sam who’s making her sound like this now—him who has her by the hips, has her balls-deep and hands flinch-dragging for support somewhere, anywhere; tip-toed and drippy-mouthed.

Bent at the waist, there’s a sliver of skin Sam has his stare zoomed in on. Her darling lower back. Jeans pooling around his ankles leaves their skin to slap, loudly, echoing through the entirety of the sorry little room they’re paying fifty bucks a night for.

Sam is delirious. It’s almost too much to take—having her back, being back with her, having all of her; again.

“Mom—”

She’s keening.

“Mom, I’m close—”

She manages, “Pull out,” while her body signals the exact opposite, but he nods, eyes squeezed close because he’ll have this as long as he can.

Her hips are broader than he remembers. She feels smaller because he grew bigger.

He lifts her off her toes because he can—she’s putty, a ragdoll, squeezing him tighter than ever (because it’s been too long, too long), shouts a helpless, “Sam!” just to come on his dick anyway.

He pulls out on the very last second, groans and strains and grinds against her ass while shooting all over her back; can’t let go of her yet, just another second.

Mutual flutter when Deanna is back on her own legs. The world is still spinning and her hips are still in his grip. Gasping for breath, Sam is already calculating when he’ll be able to go again.

She reaches back to wipe her fingers through the mess. “Wow.”

“Your fault. Made me save it.”

She pulls back, uncurls to a stand. Deanna is one fluid line that strips out of its shirt for good now (one of Sam’s), sweat and exhaustion-tears clumping her hair and lashes and she’s wearing a frown only. Her thumb splits the softness of her mouth so she can suckle it free of his spunk.

She looks fourteen all over again.

One hand of hers flirts to Sam’s shoulder to cup it, gesture him closer, wrap his arms around her, kiss her.

“Come in me next time?”

“I thought…”

“I’m on the pill,” she slurs, girl-grin wide on her face. “Jus’ wanted to see if you’d listen.”

She tastes so good, fuck, fuck. Mouth to mouth, nose against nose—how did Sam ever survive any other way? “When did I ever _not_ listen to you?”

She snakes her tongue into his mouth so she doesn’t have to remind the two of them about how she never actually asked him to stay.

~

Her hand in the back pocket of his jeans, walking down the street—almost as good as sex. People can see, can tell they belong together. Whatever power Sam has to thank that Deanna and him barely look alike, he’ll gladly pay his dept one day.

Undeniably though, being on their own is the best. Hidden away, doors locked, salt line, curtains drawn—Deanna sprawled on top or under or next to Sam, in the bathroom for a quick piss or rinse and then he has her back, smothers her in kisses and is taken care of just the same in return.

Even that sharp, mean pain once he realizes he hasn’t thought of Jess in, what, three days now—it’s nothing. It’s passing.

What counts is Deanna, here, with him.

Deanna, who’s cupping his face both-handedly and mewling in almost-pain over sinking down on his cock. Her pussy is somewhat sore, she said, but they tried anal half an hour ago and she’s not handling _that_ again anytime soon, she said.

So she’s trying, working hard to get him all up inside herself, brows knitted now and huffing, “God, what did they _feed_ you?” and he can’t even laugh because he can feel it, too. His hips twitch up, a good angle and he dips in another two inches or so, has her writhing but clamping her thighs around him tighter, holding on.

She slurs, “Promise me,” and Sam breathes, “Yeah,” no question anywhere to be found.

Stay. Be mine. Let me have you. Have me.

They’ve been vowing for years, sex or not. But Sam has grown up now as well, like it or not, and this here feels different, like more, like something important.

Sam feels like he can keep promises now.

“I love you, Mommy.”

“I—Sammy.” She’s grinding now, slow deep figure eights that make the world seem too small. Her mouth is hovering over Sam’s; he can feel her trembling. “Sammy.”

“I’ve got you.”

“Ah—”

“You feel so fucking good.” He licks into her too-open mouth, slams up into her and she’s silent but not quiet at all. “You gonna come, Mommy?”

She sobs, “Uh-huh,” and sobs louder once he gets his mouth on one of her tits, suck-chews until she’s gasping. Her rhythm goes erratic just before she seizes, softens, draws her mewl out into a grown moan as he takes over, pounds her with his mouth still sucking.

Sam flips them eventually, Deanna on her back now, legs thrown over his shoulders (Jess was proud of an always-perfect shaving job but Deanna never really cared) and she’s legitimately crying then, grabbing for his face and neck and hair and holds on, still coming, milking Sam to his own climax.

They made a new game out of it: plugging her up with his limp dick until it gets pushed out—or grows too hard for that to happen. Whichever comes first.

She’s pliant, drenched and warm, breathing hard through her nose, Sam’s face tucked up into the nape of her neck. Her fingers absently rake through his hair.

They’ve fallen asleep like this earlier this day.

~

Open your mouth—here comes the train.

Harder, hard, baby, please.

“Hey.”

Sam takes the cold bottle, takes a gulp without checking what it is. Deanna opens her own with her ring then; Sam always comes first.

Waiting. Easy to forget how much of a hunter’s life consists of waiting. Waiting for clues, for cases, for colleagues (like them, right now), for first aid, for repairs and supplies, for your family to return.

Some things, you don’t unlearn them this easily. Forget, yeah, but it’s muscle memory, really. Sitting on the side of the road with Deanna—they did that a lot. Dad would eventually drive by, pick them up on the way. Deanna usually would wrap herself in his clothes so not too many strangers would stop and try baiting them into their rides instead.

She’s still wearing the same knife in her boot as she did during middle school, high school. She takes a seat on the cooler, elbows wide on her knees, glaring down the road whilst raising the bottle to her mouth.

“Bet you’re missing school right now, huh.”

Sam blinks into the same direction as her. “Not really.”

“And un-really?” she chuckles.

A moment. Then, “I thought I would. But I don’t.”

Deanna holds her bottle with two hands now, back round, black tee against sun.

Still no movement on the horizon.

“If she was still there, waiting for you, maybe you would.”

His hand goes out to cup her thigh, tug on it. “Hey,” he says, “why would you say that? I’m here.”

“’Cause I dragged you.”

“Could’ve said no, couldn’t I?”

“No, you couldn’t.” Dry chuckle, another swig.

“You think?”

“I know,” she corrects. “I know you, Sammy boy. A mother knows things like that. Feel them.” Hanging head; she faces him over her shoulder. “’S okay. That you tried to replace me, I mean. I get it.”

“Dee…”

“No, seriously. I mean—look at us. We’re as fucked up as it gets. Hell, anyone would bail on _that_!”

They laugh in unison; dragged out, lazy. Hopeless.

“I’d choose us anytime,” Sam breathes, head hung back, hand still on her leg. Her knee is bumping into his ribs at this point.

Deanna, again laughing, slings her arm around Sam’s shoulders.


End file.
